


496. secrets

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [198]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 09:57:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9318188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Helena and Sarah, after the dance party.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: helena briefly discusses her wedding]

The track ends, and Cosima makes her swaying way over to the record player to put something else on. Felix drifts over to help her; Sarah stops dancing with a sudden cement-heavy exhaustion, watches for a moment the way Alison is listening to Kira storytell. She rubs her sweating palms on her legs, considers it: family. Her family. All of these people Sarah’s family.

When she looks to her left Helena is watching Kira and Alison; her face looks the way Sarah feels. Her hand is curling unconsciously over her stomach. It’s been doing that all night.

“Hey,” Sarah says, moving gently into her space. “You hungry?”

Helena twitches. “No,” she says. “Arthur had food in his cold box.”

“Fridge?”

Helena shrugs. She’s back to watching Alison and Kira. “She’s married,” she says.

“Yeah,” Sarah says, collapsing on the couch. She bangs the cushion next to her with the heel of her hand a few times, and Helena sits down. Her knees flap out and in a few times, pulling at the fabric of her dress. Her hand is back to her belly again.

“I was married,” she says. “They put drugs in the food, and I went to sleep, and when I woke up I was not awake, and then I was married.”

“Oh,” Sarah says, like an idiot. “Shit. You – you know that doesn’t count, right?”

Helena gives her a confused, scared-animal look through the frizzed blonde curtain of her hair.

“You have to say yes,” Sarah says, leaning back against the couch cushions. “Else it isn’t shit. You say yes?”

“No,” Helena says quietly.

“There you go,” Sarah says. “Not real.”

Helena huffs out a breath through her nose, long, and frowns at the carpet. “I,” she says, visibly struggling, and then stops. She says she isn’t hungry but her hand is desperate on the fabric of her dress, back and forth, back and forth. For some reason Sarah thinks about the first few months Kira was in her belly, how strange it was, how terrifying. How beautifully it made her afraid.

She looks across the room, watches Kira and Cosima swaying back and forth to the latest song. They’re both laughing. Sarah’s mouth tugs up at the corner, watching them.

“Kira was really happy to see you, y’know,” she murmurs, tilting her head sideways so she can see Helena out of the corner of her eye. Helena is softer, that way; she’s easier to look at. Just a dandelion, a vague halo, a picture of a lion with all the claws and teeth cut out.

“I was glad to see her also,” Helena says, shuffling a little closer on the couch. Her knees keep bumping against each other. Sometimes they bump against Sarah’s legs – but gently, always gently, barely even there. “I missed her. I had not seen her – since. Um.”

As if sensing that they’re talking about her, Kira looks over and waves. Helena sits right up like she’s been shocked, waves back enthusiastically. When Kira looks away Helena sits back down again.

“She’s so good,” she says quietly. “I – would. Be scared. If I had a baby. I would be very scared, that she would not be good.” Her head ducks down; her lips fold between her teeth. Sarah sighs heavily, rests her head on the back of the couch.

“Yeah,” she says. “Terrifying. I got lucky, yeah? She’s – she’s such a good kid. Scares the living shite out of me, honestly. Dunno how she ended up like that considering who her mum is.” She huffs out a laugh, self-deprecating.

( _Shut up_ , she tells the small desperate part of her pleading Helena to say something kind. _Shut up, shut up_.)

“But you’re a good mother,” Helena says, sounding surprised.

( _Shut up shut up shut up—_ )

“Not really,” Sarah mutters. She scuffs her boot against the carpet. Her heart is banging desperate with the need to get away from this part of the conversation, before Helena can say something else that’s meant as a kindness. “Alison’s a good mum, actually. She’s got two of ‘em. They’re good kids.”

“Oh,” Helena echoes, staring at Alison again. She and Felix are dancing; Alison’s smiling a little, silly, and she looks unbearably young. Sarah can’t look at her for long.

“And she’s married,” Helena says.

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” Helena says again. Her hand is back in motion. “She looks – nice.”

“Don’t think ‘nice’ is the word I’d use.”

“But,” Helena says. “She is – clean. Tidy. She has a husband, and babies.” Sarah turns her head to look at Helena all the way. There’s the hunger Sarah was looking for: it’s in Helena’s eyes as she watches Alison dance.

“Tell you what,” Sarah says. “After we’re all done dancing, you two should hang.”

Helena stares at her. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Sarah says, and not entirely because it’s just a hilarious image. “Don’t think you could go to her house or anything, she’d – explode. But we’re family, yeah?”

“Family,” Helena echoes. “Is it a nice house. I see houses sometimes. On tee-vee. With white fences and green grass.”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Sarah says. “Backyard barbecues and shit, whole nine yards.”

“I would like to go to that house,” Helena says. “But not if Alison- _sestra_ explodes.”

Sarah laughs a little. “Good plan,” she says. “Gonna be honest with you, though, anything’d make her explode.”

“Boom.” Helena snorts a little to herself, choky little giggles.

“You got it,” Sarah says. “I’ll tell her tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Helena says, smiling a little. Sarah leans over and ruffles her hair a little bit, lightly. Helena makes a scrunched-up face that says she doesn’t know whether she’s annoyed or over the moon or both; she allows it.

“Come on, meathead,” Sarah says. “Time for more dancing.”

“Do not call me this,” Helena complains, but she holds out her hands. Sarah takes them and pulls her up to standing. They go back out to dance.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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